Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1899 — SEAL CATCHES KILLIES. [ARTICLE]

SEAL CATCHES KILLIES.

Ll*htnlng as a Swimmer, Much Faster Than the Little Fish. Almost all the larger* fishes of the aquarium like killies to eat when they can get them, and in this respect the New Hampshire seal is like the fishes. There is a great disproportion in size between the seal and the killie, but there is nothing clumsy about the seal, and, big as it is, it is a lightning swimmer, and it can double on itself with the greatest facility. It is much faster than the killie, and the killie is powerless to escape it, says the New York Sun. On being tossed into the pool the killie makes off from where it struck the water as fast as it can go, with the seal after it. There are steps at one end of the pool leading to the platform on which the seal sleeps at night. The killie may hug one of these steps, but it does not thus escape. The seal humps it up there, and catches and eats it, or starts it out across the pool again. The seal can ge.t it practically whenever it wants to. When chasing up the killie the seal sometimes flaps its side flappers like wings, and then it seems like a big bird rushing along under water. It would take a good many killies to make a meal for the seal, and they are rarely fed to it—only when the seal is a little off its feed and needs something different as an appetizer.